The FCC’s plan to kill the cable box just hit a roadblock

The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday announced that
it is delaying its vote on a proposal that would require pay-TV providers
to make their programming available through free apps,
effectively ending the need to rent a cable box.

The vote was originally planned for Thursday, but a joint
statement from FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and Commissioners Mignon
Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel said that the group is “still
working to resolve the remaining technical and legal issues” with
the proposal.

In an email, FCC Secretary Kim Hart did not provide any timeline
for when a vote might take place. For now, the measure will go on
the FCC’s circulation list, where it will “remain under
consideration” by the Commissioners.

The delay is just the latest hurdle in Wheeler’s ongoing attempt
to upend the set-top box market.

Back in February, the FCC originally proposed a measure that
would’ve required cable and satellite TV companies to give their
programming information to third-party streaming device makers
like Roku, Apple, or Google. Those device makers would then be
able to present pay-TV content on their boxes through their own
user interfaces.

That didn’t go over well with the pay-TV industry, naturally, and
earlier this month the Commission presented the revised proposal
that’s in question today, which significantly walks back portions
of the original plan to comply with the pay-TV industry’s
concerns over copyright protections and licensing arrangements.
Cable and satellite companies would now have complete control
over the apps they provide to streaming platforms, but they’d
still have to provide them in the first place, which would
theoretically cut into the billions of dollars they generate in
set-top box rental fees each year.

Crucially, the proposal calls for pay-TV providers and
programmers to create a licensing board that'd specify the terms
of how those apps would be provided to streaming device
makers. It asks for one universal license, instead of
allowing cable companies to set different licensing terms
with different manufacturers. The FCC would then be able to
object to any decision from that board that it doesn’t
find to work within its rules.

It's this bit that’s resulted in the most pushback from
cable companies, along with concerns from Democrat Rosenworcel,
who is widely seen as holding the swing vote among the
five-person Commission. Those concerns now appear to have been
strong enough to keep Wheeler’s plan from coming through as it is
now.

Whatever the case, the cable industry can breathe a sigh of
relief, while those hoping to get full-on cable over the internet
will have to wait a little while longer.